The Lifestyle moDIfCation Study

Summary

Rationale: Lifestyle modifications, such as increasing physical exercise and reducing dietary salt and saturated fat intake contribute to prevention of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Relevant improvements can already be achieved by small adaptations in everyday life. It is unclear whether simple low-cost interventions in the working environment can promote such healthy lifestyle adaptations.

Objective: To study the effect of low-cost interventions for promoting healthy lifestyle modifications.

Study design: Before-and-after intervention study. The study period will be subdivided in four parts of 2 weeks each: a run-in period, a before-measurement period, an intervention-period, and an after measurement period.

Study population: Staff and visitors of the University Medical Center Utrecht.

Study interventions:

* Promotion of stair climbing.
* Promotion of a low-salt soup alternative for the 'soup of the day'.
* Promotion of a low-fat alternative for the butter croissants.
* Exchange of the basket positions of butter and margarine between convenient and harder to reach locations.

Outcome measures:

* Number of passages through each part of the stair cases.
* Number of low-salt cream soup and normal clear soup cups sold in the hospital restaurant and ratio between them.
* Number of low-fat and normal croissants sold in the hospital restaurant and the ratio between them.
* Number of low-fat margarine servings and butter servings sold in the hospital restaurant and the ratio between them.

Conditions

• Healthy

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Promotion of stair climbing

Application of labels on all UMC elevator doors stating: " If you take the stairs, you will burn 11 times more calories."

BEHAVIORAL

Promotion of a low-salt soup alternative for the 'soup of the day'

Promotion of a low-salt soup alternative for the 'soup of the day' in the UMC staff restaurant, using a sign stating: "The cream soup contains 30% less salt and contributes to a healthy blood pressure."

BEHAVIORAL

Promotion of a low-fat alternative for the butter croissants

Promotion of a low-fat alternative for the butter croissants in the UMC staff restaurant, using a sign stating: "This croissant contains 30% fewer saturated (unhealthy) fatty acids."

BEHAVIORAL

Exchange of the basket positions of butter and margarine in the UMC staff restaurant between convenient and harder to reach locations

Exchange of the basket positions of butter and margarine in the UMC staff restaurant. In the usual (baseline) situation butter is positioned in the fridge and, therefore, less visible and harder to reach. Margarine is positioned on several convenient locations throughout the restaurant. During the two weeks intervention period these positions will be interchanged.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• UMC Utrecht

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2012-02-29

Primary Completion

2012-04-30

Countries

• Netherlands

Study Locations